


A Moment of Peace

by fluffled



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Drabble, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 11:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18872770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffled/pseuds/fluffled
Summary: Utsuho enjoys a day off.





	A Moment of Peace

It was a peaceful, warm, and quiet day in Former Hell so Utsuho, having no actual work to do, had made her way up to the Palace of the Earth Spirits for some relaxation. Granted, currently her idea of relaxation was poring her way through one of about a dozen books she had requested, while flopped on a couch.  The rooms of the mansion were large and many of them were empty, so she was alone in calm silence, paging through books, her wings stretched out behind her and the cape she’d grown fond of draped over the back of the couch. And, of course, the arm was off – hard to turn pages with a hand encased completely in metal.

She’d gotten very used to the quiet, entirely too absorbed in books that weren’t helping at all (turns out it’s hard to find written knowledge in Gensokyo about nuclear fusion). She’d wanted to learn more about her power but instead she was occasionally breaking the silence with a soft derisive laugh and some sort of comment to herself. “What? No way, it doesn’t work like _that_ … or _does_ it?” Another flip of the page and some more deep thought. (The powers she had came to her very naturally. She wanted to try explaining it to other people but found difficulty explaining it any better than “it works because it does”. Research, she thought, might help her put into words these exciting abilities. So far… no success.)

In fact, she found herself very snug in her spot, her attention focused so strongly on the page in front of her, that when she heard tiny footsteps padding across the room she barely acknowledged them. She didn’t turn her eyes from the paper but a smile of recognition crossed her face as a small fluffy head bumped against her legs and rubbed against her socks. The hand that wasn’t holding the book instinctively went down and found the new visitor’s chin.

“Done with your work early today?” Utsuho asked softly. A _mrrow_ answered her, and she smiled warmly as she stroked her favorite cat’s head. “Makes sense, the weather’s _great_ down here today. I’ve just been here reading these books you found me.” She felt the pressure of tiny paws against her leg and stretched to move in a comfier position, nearly laying down at this point, with her head against the armrest. The cat climbed its way up to her and found a cozy spot curled against her stomach, nestled behind the book Utsuho now held delicately with one hand as the other stroked the cat’s fur.

“Some of the things in these books are just nonsense, though, listen to this!” she announced before reading a passage aloud. The purring in her arms intensified as Utsuho explained how precisely there’s no possible way that this information, written by somebody who knows how many hundreds of years ago, was scientifically accurate.

It was so warm and she was so content with the purring in her lap that over time Utsuho’s voice got softer, and sleepier, and her words were punctured with yawns so she decided to just… rest her eyes a little, much like the cat, softly snoring, and soon she joined it in a peaceful afternoon nap.

* * *

An hour later, when Rin returned to the palace after a day of hauling corpses she ran into the room and shouted for Utsuho’s attention, only to find her curled up on a couch with a book on her face and a strange stray cat who’d wandered in on her stomach, both sound asleep.

 


End file.
